


so the earth can grow more flowers

by captainkilly



Series: form & void [4]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Fluff, M/M, Post-War, gods walk the earth and exact their influence on people, there's just these two being cute, there's no drama here honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: When the war is over, new life takes shape. Floyd Talbert doesn't think he has a hand in its creation, until love finds a way to disagree with him..
Relationships: Shifty Powers/Floyd Talbert
Series: form & void [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918033
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	so the earth can grow more flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Born of the prompt "things you said with no space between us".. I felt it was time to explore two god-chosen we have not spent a great deal of time with until now.

* * *

The war in Europe is over.

It feels like a punch to the gut every time he contemplates the thought for more than a minute. One moment, he is fighting for every scrap of breath he can claim into his lungs. The next moment, someone is shoving alcohol into his hands and telling him they’re done. He’s not sure his brain caught up with the latter message yet.

The process of going home is marked by more Army red tape than he has ever known. There’s a system in place – a points tally, of all things, will determine who will go home – and it seems to be specifically designed to keep as many of them here as possible. He has already resigned himself to new exposure to sunshine, trauma, and odd events in the Pacific Theater. Going home is a dream he’s not willing to indulge in just yet.

Worse, even the ones most deserving of going home are likely going to have no other choice but to stay.

“Shift!” he calls, spotting the man in the middle of a field, “been looking for ya!”

He’s spent half the morning looking for him, if he’s being honest, but he’s not about to tell Shifty that. Shift’s one of those fellas that loses track of time doing whatever he’s doing, and interruptions are usually made at one’s own peril. It had taken five people before he finally stumbled upon the one person who knew where Shifty could be found.

He shivers at the memory of Hammond’s cold, dark eyes weighing him. Some of the men call Hammond a mind-reader, but he thinks that’s an overly generous description of someone who seemingly plucked the thought _find Shift_ out of his head and said “the field up by that intersection” long before any question had tumbled from his mouth. He’d thanked the man, of course, but he doesn’t envy Nixon the task of working with someone like that at all.

All thoughts of disconcerting encounters evaporate from his mind the closer he steps to Shifty. He pauses when he is almost within reach of the man. Observes him quietly, now that he has realized that Shifty is not even looking at him and is keeping his gaze trained firmly on the rough patches of dirt in front of him instead. Not for the first time, he wishes he could at least make sure this man gets to go home. War's no place for him, not even when his aim is always true and his presence is the only thing that keeps him from screaming. He shakes his head. Softens again when he truly looks at how peaceful Shifty seems here on the cold, hard ground.

“It’s all right, Tab. You can come closer.”

He’s long since given up on asking how it is that Shifty always knows it’s him. He supposes his footsteps on the land give him away, that the sound of his voice probably is one of the most familiar notes in the song of the wind that howls around them, and if it is not that then probably something else that Shifty can sense as a change in the world around him. He shrugs at it the way he’s learned to shrug at all other signs that someone is god-chosen and mildly terrifying. He steps closer to where Shifty is lying belly-down on the ground.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, frowning down at Shifty when it doesn’t seem like the man’s about to get up. “We’re not under any kind of attack.”

If he didn’t know better, he’d call the noise that escapes Shifty _impatient_. Shifty’s hand finds his ankle. Warmth seeps through his boot in an instant, familiar and welcome, and he sighs at the contact. He knows he can’t keep standing here, not when Shifty obviously wants to show him something. Kneels down beside Shifty moments later.

“Get down here,” demands Shifty, “and look.”

He heaves a sigh. Doesn’t argue beyond that, though, and certainly doesn’t waste time. He lies down beside Shifty. Their arms press together. He throws his foot over Shifty’s a moment later, more comfortable touching like this than he is to lie beside him and not reach out to him in some way, and wedges himself as close to Shifty’s side as he dares. He smiles at the warmth that seeps into his side.

“What am I looking at?”

“You know how some of the land is having trouble, yeah?” Shifty’s voice has dropped to no more than a murmur. “We saw it everywhere we went. Barren earth, damaged soil, ruined plants, broken trees.”

“Yeah.” He recalls merely holding on to a heartbroken Shifty in a foxhole deep in the Bois Jacques forest. Recalls how fragmented Shifty’s god was in that time, worse even than his own. “It seems to be doing better here.”

“It is,” agrees Shifty, “but it needs some help. Look at this.” The patch of ground before them is made of nothing but clumps of dried grass and hard soil. Shifty’s hand rests atop its center. “Now that the fighting’s over, it can grow again. Only, it doesn’t know that yet. It’s hiding.”

“The.. earth is hiding?”

“What’s inside it is.”

He glances sideways only to catch Shifty’s gentle smile, which is directed wholly at the patch of dirt before them. He huffs out an almost-laugh at the sight. Of course Shifty is the type to believe there’s something still lurking beneath such damaged ground. Of course he’s the one who thinks there’s something there that can grow out of nothing. He directs his gaze back at the soil moments later, softly amused by the warmth that lurks inside that knowing smile.

“So, you’re.. telling whatever is beneath this that it’s okay to come back out?” He hedges the question. Isn’t sure he’s asking the right things at all. “That the fighting’s done and it can just.. live again?”

Shifty hums. “Something like that.”

“Well, how do you know it’s worked?” He rests his chin on his arm. Observes the ground, which doesn’t look like it is going through any changes at all. “Do you just come back every day to see what’s changed?”

“Might need your help, Tab.”

“Mine?”

“Yeah. You see, it doesn’t quite believe me when I tell it that it’s all right. It’s still scared, see?”

Of all the realizations Tab’s had during this time in Europe, the observation that the ground itself is scared isn’t even the strangest one. When Shifty moves his hand away from the soil’s center, he sees a small green something peek out from between the dirt. He knows enough about this kind of thing to know he’s looking at something that’s beginning to sprout leaves, a stem, perhaps even a flower much later on. All it is now is a bud, something new and green and probably as terrified of coming back to life as they all are.

“I can’t make something grow,” he says, stupidly, because he is always fine with new beginnings but not so fine with anything that follows. Things break in his hands all the time. There’s no growth in that. “That’s you, Shift. It’s never been me.”

“Put your hand on the ground just in front of it.” Shifty’s voice, low and reassuring, brushes past his ear in a way that makes him shiver. “I’ll help you, Tab, I will, but you gotta trust me on this. Close your eyes and just.. think of the things you love.”

“Think of the things I love?” he echoes, feeling more stupid by the minute. He still reaches out with his hand. Still places it upon the soil just before the budding green. “What the hell’s that going to do?”

“Trust me.”

“Fine.” He shakes his head. Closes his eyes moments later. “I can’t believe I’m doing this..”

He lays upon foreign soil with his fingers in the dirt and the sun shining down on him. He breathes in the grass, the trees, and Shifty right beside him. There’s something of earth to Shifty, too, something warm and steady and unchanging regardless of season. Shifty’s hand comes to rest between his shoulder blades, in that space that feels at once both hollow and full, and he breathes all the deeper for it.

There’s stillness in this that is entirely different from the stillness in the Bois Jacques, which was always marred by fear and desolation sooner or later. Even Shifty’s presence, beside him, feels different to the touch. He revels in the feeling of being close enough to hear every steady breath, feel the warmth that radiates from his body, sense the gentleness with which Shifty treats his presence beside him. He smiles as Shifty’s lips fleetingly brush his brow in a full reversal of affection that he used to give when the world around them kept crumbling down.

_I love you,_ he thinks, and guards this one secret with his life. _I love being a part of the world that has you in it. I love that you want me to be here with you._

Love blossoms, slowly, surely, and he sighs as the heat of it curls around his heart and sends a familiar flutter swirling through his belly. There’s that taste of honey on his lips, that sharp jolt that shivers through his body when Shifty’s chin comes to rest on his shoulder, that old and silent agony that comes with loving someone much better than himself.

“Tab, look,” whispers Shifty, “open your eyes.”

“It didn’t work, did it? I mean, to assume that it did would be prepos–”

The words die in his throat when he opens his eyes and finds the world before him changed. There’s a lone flower standing in the space where the green bud used to be. Small, yes, but unmistakably a flower. White, with yellow at its center, and bright green leaves to balance its roots with. Beyond the flower, grass has begun to sprout up from nothing. The soil that seemed so barren before is richer and darker than before, as if new earth has mingled with the old.

“Shift,” he says, vaguely alarmed by it all, “what the fuck.”

Shifty’s laugh is joyful. Delighted, even. “I said it needed you, didn’t I?” Shifty rolls onto his side as if he wants to do nothing more than observe Tab’s surprise. “Love like yours, it’s what the earth needs. I know you said that there’s love even in War, that she can feel that for something too, but.. The earth doesn’t feel that.” Shifty’s smile is utterly radiant. “The earth just knows her havoc, and it needed to be told that there’s love again. That it’s safe now, that we haven’t gone anywhere. That we.. We can be gentle again.”

“That’s..” He shakes his head. Withdraws his hand from the soil and turns toward Shifty. Scoots over until he’s pressed so close against him that there’s no more distance between them at all. “I’d say it sounds mad, if I hadn’t seen it just now.” He laughs, more in disbelief than joy, as he looks at the flower and then turns his gaze to Shifty’s warm eyes. “What sort of flower is that, even?”

“A crocus. One of the first to come after a long winter.”

“It’s been a long one, yeah.”

“Indeed.”

They’re almost nose to nose now. Forehead to forehead. Their arms and legs already tangled up in something familiar and yet strange. His heart threatens to beat out of his chest and spill the truth long before his mouth will ever catch up with him.

“Shift?” he whispers.

“Yeah, Tab?”

“I, uh.. How much did you help me?”

“I didn’t have to do anything. Except be here, which I am.” Shifty’s cheeks burn in the bright light of day. “I’m here for you. With you.”

“You were all I could think of,” he says, then, and feels the secret give way in his chest. “Just now. It was just you.”

He’s never been the bold one, truly. He’s easy with affection, sure, and usually knows exactly the right words in every situation. He is easy with touch and easier still with expressing the lust that thunders through almost every person’s skin. He knows people and their ways of being, knows them so intimately that at times he feels there’s not a single person he hasn’t already touched, knows exactly when something is done in love and thus done well. He’s never been uncertain of people, so he has never had to be brave.

Shifty is the one to grasp at courage and close that final space between them.

He smiles into the kiss as soon as it lands on his mouth. Laughs into the touch, so soft and tentative, and wraps himself so firmly around the other that there’s no possible way to be alone again. Sighs against Shifty’s lips and feels the earth move all around him. It’s his world that tilts on its axis and is put to rights again with just this one touch.

_You can love again,_ comes the inner assurance of a voice that almost tore him asunder during the war, _and you will have more love._

He kisses Shifty back and feels his heart burst to life in his chest at last.


End file.
